


No Surprises

by quondam



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9569732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quondam/pseuds/quondam
Summary: Mid-ME3. Shepard makes a decision not to continue a pregnancy in favor of their mission.





	

She has to tell him three times to understand what she’s saying. Even then, it’s a minute for Garrus to digest the words and swallow them down. Shepard offers him a data pad straight from Chakwas’ office, a prop prepared ahead of time to help him follow along. She always thinks of everything.

Despoina hadn’t gone as expected, not that there’d been any true expectations for a mission so hazy as the one in search of Leviathan. Shepard had bared the brunt of the injury there, deep below the sea and on her own. To say that Garrus worried on every mission they went on would be accurate, but that one… it had shaken him to the core. Shepard’s condition after it hadn’t done much to calm him.

She’d laid up in Chakwas’ med bay through the night for observation, and it was especially telling that she hadn’t fought anyone on the recommendation. Shepard had slept, rehydrated, and let Chakwas run those tests and scans as she saw fit.

They’d come up clear for the most part, minus one little thing.

He loses himself in those words there, rereads them once, twice, ten times. His eyes follow but the words don’t compute, like it’s another language or he’s lost the ability all together. Shepard touches his shoulder and he isn’t sure how much time has passed.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she says. “But I’ve been with no one else since I died.”

There had been a time when Shepard had shied away from using that word and so had he—he still does, he thinks—but she uses it so fluidly now. Died.

She’s right, though. It doesn’t make any god damn sense.

“Could it be wrong?” And he feels the fool for asking such a stupid, simple question. When he looks up to her, Shepard’s brows are furrowed together, her lips a flat line and tight. Of course they’d triple checked. Quadruple checked. Ran a million extrapolations on this one line item to make sure.

Shepard pads away from him, her fingers running through her damp hair and coming to interlock behind her neck. It’s a typical sight, a habit when she’s in thought over something particularly trying. “I had a thought not to tell you at all.”

She hedges a glance at him, from the corners of her eyes and his head jerks up, catching it just in time before she looks away and drops her hands to her hips. She paces across the small space in front of her bed, just out of arm’s reach from where he sits on the couch.

Her words burn. They’ve practiced honesty with one another since the beginning, at least he has. “And then the plan would be…?”

“I didn’t get that far,” she answers quickly, defensive over the thoughts she’d confessed. “I obviously changed my mind.”

The data pad is an inanimate savior, something to focus his eyes on when he can’t look at her. Something to keep his hands busy with when he doesn’t know what else to do. Shepard flits about the room like she does before a big mission or important vid call, trying to find something to do but never accomplishing anything. She picks up a shirt and doesn’t fold it, setting it down on the counter instead of the floor. She dries her hair again in that same wet towel, then tosses it back to a different corner of the bed. She digs through a drawer like she’s about to change her clothes but closes it, stays in her underwear and tank top.

When he looks up, she’s absolutely still and staring at him. Through him, almost.

“We’re on our way back to the Citadel.”

He’s not sure what that has to do with anything, they’d only just been there not more than a few days before and more than stocked themselves.

“Chakwas says she doesn’t have what she needs for me on board,” she adds quietly, for way of clarification, then sits on her bed, one leg pulled up to her chest.

“So you’re going to…?”

Shepard sighs, and it’s more than just this moment that weighs on her. It’s a general weariness. They all have it. “What else am I supposed to do?”

He sets the data pad down on the coffee table.

“We should discuss this at least, don’t you think?”

Their eyes meet. Shepard is ever steady, the beacon of calm she always is, even in the middle of a firefight. He loves that about her. He also hates that about her. She should’ve been Turian, he sometimes thinks, with the way she seems to be able to just turn parts of her off when she needs to.

“There’s nothing to think about.”

He knows. He really does. But at the same time…

“If I do,” her voice trails off and Shepard runs her hands up and down her shin, as if to draw warmth to it. It’s just a distraction. “It’ll break me right now, Garrus.”

For once, he hears a crack in that armor in her voice. He knows what it means for her to show that at all.

“We could…” The words leave him before he’s even fully conscious of the thought that he’s speaking. He regrets it, but not the notion. More than anything he wants to solve this for her, a neat answer to a complicated problem.

“Garrus,” she says at little more than a whisper. “We can’t.”

The space between them feels an ocean now. It feels further away than when she was below the sea the day before and he was helpless, waiting to see if she’d come back at all. Garrus goes to her, crosses the distance, and it isn’t lost on him how Shepard shifts, inches herself back on the bed as if to maintain the status quo. She stops, though. She stops and holds still, her muscles tense. He sits next to her, the cloth of his pants just brushing her own leg.

“Have you seen it? Was it Turian? Human?”

There’s a tick, an almost imperceptible twitch to her face that goes just as quickly as it came. She fists the fabric of the comforter of the bed, knuckles gone white. “She told me what she found, but I didn’t want to see anything. I don’t know. I don’t know if she even knows.”

It’s impossible, the whole thing. She was right earlier, it doesn’t make any sense. And yet, despite all of that, it had happened regardless. Leave it to Shepard, he thinks, always doing what someone told her she couldn’t.

He’d never said such dreams of foolishness aloud to her or anyone before, he’d barely even let himself think them. But they’d been infiltrating little thoughts, hadn’t they? Coming to him in dream, coming to him sometimes when he looked at her and felt optimistic in letting himself believe they’d survive this whole thing. When it was over maybe they could settle down and…

“This isn’t a conversation I’d ever thought I’d be having with anyone,” she says, a forced laugh on an exhale. “Especially you, given our particular circumstances.”

“Is it that bad?” Garrus asks suddenly, then turns to look at her. “The thought of you and me having that.”

Shepard softens, she always does when she senses he needs it most. Her hand rests against his mandible. Her eyes are glistening when finally she speaks.

“Keeping it means I’ll have to stop fighting at some point. I won’t be at my best. There’s so many things out there—even the eezo alone, what would that do to it?” She breathes an unsteady, shaky breath.

She’s right. She always is. He wants to tell her that he’ll pick up the slack—they all will. When she needs to take a step back from it all, they’ll be there to step forward for her. That’s not Shepard, though. That’s never been Shepard.

Garrus looks away before she can and just shuts his eyes. Shepard curls an arm around him, presses her head to his shoulder. Her warmth feels just as good as it ever did.

“Say something,” she says, but he hears in her voice a desperate plea.

“Tell me how you want me to react, Shepard. Do you want me to tell you not to do it? Or agree with you? Should I be happy or indifferent?”

Shepard pulls away at the sudden onslaught. He regrets his tone immediately. “I want you to be honest with me, just as I always do.”

“But sometimes,” he starts and can’t make himself stop, “you just want an echo chamber for your own thoughts.”

She’s moved away from him now, not far, but just so they’re no longer touching and she’s half turned on the bed so she can watch him directly. “Not from you,” she bites. “I’ve never wanted that from you.”

Shepard’s used to doing things on her own, even with a crew at her back. Those big decisions, they’re hers to make and for them to follow. _She might not have even told me_ , the betraying thought revisits him.

“Tell me the truth,” Shepard tries again and reaches for one of his hands with both of hers.

“I’m…” His head shakes. “I’m happy. Am I allowed to be?”

There’s a curt little nod from her. “Yes,” she answers. “Of course.”

“Now you. Tell me the truth.”

He has a few things he expects her to say, a few choice possibilities. What she does say, however, isn’t one of them.

Shepard squeezes his hand tight, her voice is wet with the tears she holds in. “I’m afraid.”

He takes her in his arms then, pulls her into his lap as best he can and nuzzles his mandible to her cheek. She makes not a sound, and if it weren’t for the tears he feels against his skin and plates, he doesn’t know that he would have ever known she wept at all. Garrus wants to see her, wants to look her in the eyes, but when he tries to ease his hold on her, Shepard grips him even harder and refuses to budge.

“I didn’t know it was something I wanted,” she speaks softly, “but I do now. I want it and I can’t have it.”

He feels her finger nails digging into him, a similar manner to the way she does when he’s inside her, only this time it’s out of sorrow instead of pleasure.

“I’d do it if I could, Garrus.”

His heart breaks not just for her, but himself, too.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes because it feels as though he should. He’s played his role in this, after all. If he could go back and change it—use some kind of protection when they thought they had no reason to worry—he doesn’t know if he would. This pain, it’s unbearable, but that flicker of something he can’t quite put his finger on… he’s not sure he’d ever give it up.

She’s wiped her cheeks before he can even see her, though her eyes are red rimmed. Shepard presses her forehead to his.

“Can I ask something of you?”

He nods against her, knows she can feel it.

She looks at him like she’s searching for something in his own eyes, some truth or comfort. “Can we take the night and pretend like we don’t know what’s coming? Can we be happy for one night?”

It’s a fool’s game, he knows. They’ll talk and pretend and it’ll cut them somewhere deep all the while, but he doesn’t have the heart to deny her. Or himself.

He’s never seen her so willing to open herself before. She’s usually all compartmentalization, affection given only in calm, measured doses. With what her life has been… he doesn’t question the reasons why she operates as she does, however. It’s an honor to get to see her with those guards lowered, even if they’re never gone completely. Someday, he thinks, he’ll see what’s deep down underneath.

Garrus doesn’t answer her directly, but lets his mandibles spread wide then clack closed against his facial plates. “I didn’t know I had it in me,” he teases.

Shepard smiles, and it’s genuine the way it even seems to reach her eyes, not forced or faked. “I did.”

She climbs from his lap and moves back across the bed, offering a hand to encourage him with her. He obliges her as he always does and she hurries in undressing him, first his top and then his bottoms. She slips under the blanket and welcomes him in when he joins her.

Shepard’s kissing him before he even knows what’s happening next. It’s primal in a way, but their times together always are; it’s a side effect of fucking in the middle of a war. She pulls at her own tank top though he offers a helping hand, then she reaches down and gives her underwear a push and shove, working them down her legs.

“Please,” she begs from beneath him.

He wants it just as much as her even if a moment ago they’d been solemn and melancholy, resigned to their fate. She wants to forget, and so does he. Garrus slips inside of her with a well practiced easiness and Shepard moans loudly, unrestrained, like she’s finally fully let go for once. Her arm hooks around the back of his neck, not willing to part from him.

When they fuck it’s usually in a rush: before a vid conference, after a mission when they’ve barely made it to her quarters, or even in an urgent attempt to get one in before either of them succumb to sleep. After their time apart during her incarceration, Garrus had been certain if he saw her again and she was still interested, he was going to fuck her until they were both sore. Their reunion, while passionate, hadn’t been so extreme. They’d gone slow, much like this time, reintroducing themselves to one another. They’d been thankful just to see one another alive.

This isn’t a reintroduction, of course, but there’s a different mood to it. A hint of desperation, for sure. An eagerness, as always. But spirits, did he love her. He loved her more than anything.

“I love you,” he says, because it feels right that she should know.

Shepard cums as if he’d planned it just so, her words of affection panted out in reply. “I love you.”

He follows her not long after but remains atop her, brushing the hair from her face, caressing her cheek. That flush to her skin makes him fall in love with her all over again.

“When do you think it was?”

“Hmm?”

“When we made it?”

He considers the question, and when he speaks, so does she. They share the same answer together, in unison: “The poker table.”

Shepard laughs and it’s a joy to hear. She shifts beneath him and he gets the hint, sliding out and letting their two bodies part. With her back to him, Garrus hugs her from behind, holds her smaller body close. It’s nice, and also the only time he actually feels like she’s safe even if it is a falsehood.

“Lights, EDI.” They dim on receipt of his words. It’s easier for her to talk like this, he knows, when she doesn’t have to look at him. She’s made some of her most honest confessions in the cover of darkness.

“Did you want a son?” Shepard asks eventually.

On another night, he might’ve been halfway to sleep by time she speaks, but not tonight. He’s as wide awake as he’s ever been.

“I don’t care,” he truthfully replies. “Although it would be a crime to deprive this world of another Shepard woman.”

“Galaxy’s not big enough for two of us.”

“We’d find room.”

Shepard places her palm over the back of his, her five fingers linked to his three. He shifts the placement of their hands from just below her breast to her muscled, flat abdomen, nary a hint of what lurks beneath.

“How long is pregnancy for a human?”

“Nine Earth lunar cycles, give or take.”

From where he lays, he can just barely see that her eyes are open, eyelashes fluttering as she blinks. Her skin is bathed in the blue light glow from the fish tank.

“What would your father say, I wonder.”

Garrus laughs. “He’d be scandalized.”

“Your sister mustn’t have to try hard to be the favorite with you as a brother.”

“I’ve made it easy.”

She shuts her eyes after a time and he feels her relax into the bed a little more, muscles going slack as sleep pulls her closer. Garrus is happy for it—she doesn’t need another sleepless night.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, but she’s already gone.

That sleep doesn’t come calling for him quite as effortlessly though, and Garrus finds himself alone with his thoughts and the sound of the vent circulating air in and out, maintaining temperature and proper oxygen levels.

Everything that the last few years have brought and still there always manages to be a curveball they’d never seen coming. When would it be easy? Would it ever be easy?

He wants to think of a future for the two of them that extends beyond the Normandy and the battles that face them in the coming weeks and months. He wants to think of a time and place where Shepard tells him something like this and they’re happy. Excited, even. Garrus wants to… but there’s an inkling at the back of his mind that tells him that moment won’t ever come. Not for two of them. Not for Shepard.

Still, he tries, and as he falls asleep the thought of a home somewhere comes to mind.

 

  
Shepard’s up before him the next morning. There’s a vague recollection of her slipping from his embrace in the darkness of the room and even the running of the shower, but it’s only a fading memory. The morning light cycle, the one that mimics a morning sunrise that usually eases them into wakefulness, has gone and passed. He’s overslept, a rare occurrence.

Garrus lays there for the time being, willing himself to get up, willing himself to start the day. It’s the hiss of the door to Shepard’s cabin that finally motivates him, and he’s sitting up as Shepard comes through. She’s dressed for the day, though not in her usual getup with her Spectre or Alliance affiliation tagged to an arm. It’s casual, commonplace.

“Morning,” she says, a soft smile given.

It’s not forced, per se… but it’s enough to tell Garrus that the Shepard from the night before, open and honest with him and herself, has been tucked away and replaced. He rises and passes her, a nudge of his head touched to her temple given en route to the shower. The water is scalding, just how he likes it, and when he exits the bathroom, he feels a new person. Shepard’s seated in front of her terminal, scrolling through documents.

“I should come with you,” he says while he towels off, watching her through the glass of the display case that separates bedroom from office. “When you see Chakwas.”

She taps a pen idly on the desktop. “I’ve already been. Chakwas got what she needed when we docked, gave it to me in the med bay an hour ago.”

Her words give him pause and he pulls on his pants before rounding back about the furniture. He’s stands beside where she sits as she refuses to turn her attention to him. “You should’ve woken me up.”

“For what? To watch me take a pill? It was uneventful.”

It’s over with now, a goodbye he’d never gotten to give while he slept. Shepard’s chair squeaks, turning slightly, and she throws him a bone.

“There’s nothing on our plate for the next few days,” she explains and reaches over, running her finger tips across the back of his hand. “But if something comes up and we have to head out, I’m going to send you in my place, if that’s alright. I’ve been told my next few days might be unpleasant.”

He bobs a nod of his head. It means something to be trusted like that, especially when he knows everyone else on this ship to be just as capable. It’s also the least he could do.

“Garrus?” Shepard waits only a perfunctory second. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

He knows that she knows she doesn’t have to even ask that, and yet she watches with her eyes trained up at him for an answer. Reassurance, that’s what she wants, and he’s not turned her down once yet.

Garrus touches his hand to her jaw and leans down to press his mouth to the crown of her head, a human action learned from her that he’s now started to incorporate unto himself. When he pulls back, her eyes are shut and she’s smiling.

 _Thank you_ , it says. _Thank you._


End file.
